Valerie Long

Valerie Long (1955 - 2013) worked at Creativity Explored from 2005 until her death in 2013.

Graphite, ink, and marker were her preferred media, and paper her surface of choice; fabric is used for its two-dimensional quality as well. Long worked mostly in black and white, but was not averse to using color.

Her work appears abstract but is often based on the structure of everyday objects. Long’s matter-of-fact, relaxed personality communicates its opposite reflection in her work, where a visual curiosity and intriguing grasp of pattern were filtered through her investigations into the act of seeing.

Tireless hatching and pointillist gestures are the definitive aspects of Long's engagement with drawing. She made beautiful translations of crystals into stippled, slanting boxes which, through painstaking and delicate repetition, are extracted from the mineral world and placed in ours of motion and light.

In 2010, CB2, one of our community arts partners, chose Long’s work to adorn two pillow designs.